


Measure Your Breath

by explosionshark



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:24:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18821959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/pseuds/explosionshark
Summary: "I would have stayed, if you'd asked me."





	Measure Your Breath

**Author's Note:**

> so, i'm doing some short fic based on drabble prompts on my [tumblr](http://explosionshark.tumblr.com). this was the first one i got (for the opening line) and i wasn't gonna post this to ao3 but idk. i liked it.
> 
> it's more gen than anything but i like to think there's at least a vague homoerotic tension to anything i write, so i'm leaving it in the ship tag. 
> 
> title from the song by tides of man.

"I would have stayed, if you'd asked me."

Adora's eyes jerk open, clouded with pain and confusion as she looks up at Catra. There's nothing Catra can do but watch as Adora struggles to pull together her scattered thoughts, breathing weakly through her mouth in a way that turns Catra's stomach over.

But at least she looks alert. At least she's not slipping off into… something, anymore.

"What?" Adora finally manages.

"At the Temple," Catra continues, barely thinking as the words fly out of her mouth. "When we saw the visions. When I left you."

"When you let me go," Adora says, quietly. Serious. It sets that little line running between her eyebrows, the one that had always done that, even when they were kids. Always so transparent. An open book that even after this much time apart and this much blood between them, Catra can't seem to shut.

"Yeah," Catra admits, sick still at the memory, at the feeling of uncurling her fingers from Adora's wrist, the sudden loss of weight, how she'd been so dizzy watching her fall that she'd nearly toppled over the edge after her.

It had felt like the only thing to do.

Leave her, like she'd been left. Try to put a life together without her.

It had felt like the only thing to do.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?" Adora asks, the ragged edge of a laugh in her voice.

Catra smiles on reflex, winces as the motion splits the cut on her lip open again. The pain she's long since grown used to, but the copper taste makes her queasy, somehow, even still. "I don't know."

"It doesn't matter anyway," Adora says. She tries to shrug, or maybe to shift in Catra's arms but it turns into a wince, breath hissing past her lips. Catra can't help the reflexive surge of panic in response to the sound, to the blood on Adora's teeth. "You wouldn't have gone anywhere with me then and we both know it. You're only lying to me now 'cause you think I'm gonna die."

She's probably right about it having been a lie. It feels good, in a messed up way to know that Adora can still read her too.

But— 

"Shut up, you idiot. You're _not_ going to die," Catra snaps, clutching Adora tighter on instinct and not feeling as bad about it this time when she tenses from the pain. Catra casts an appraising look over her shoulder at the beacon she'd set off earlier.

Still going.

Adora's friends are coming. They're not the Leave Anyone Behind type. They can afford not to be.

"You think I'm gonna die," Adora insists, flashing another lazy, pink-stained smile. "You only call me names when you're scared."

"I call you names whenever you deserve it, you stupid magical sword-having moron," Catra bites out. "And I'm not scared. I'm pissed off that you'd think I'd go through the trouble of saving your dumb ass just to let you die right after."

Adora's loopy smile fades like a rock sinking into a lake, and suddenly she's grim and more alert looking than she's been since Catra scooped her up into her lap at the end of the fight.

But that's good, right? She's lucid again.

"You can't go back there," Adora says. Catra starts to shake her head. It's a problem she's not prepared to deal with until Adora's someone else's problem again. 

Adora frowns, severe, reaching urgently up to clasp at Catra's shirt. "Catra, you know what they'll do. Shadow Weaver's probably already back by now. You know what they do to traitors."

"I'm not a traitor," Catra insists, feeling sick again at the thought. Even the youngest, greenest cadet knows what the Horde does with traitors. Punishment for betrayal tends to be brutal, gruesome and excruciatingly public.

She can't let her mind go there right now. It's useless to even contemplate, because it's not going to happen. She's not gonna go down like this.

She'll think of something. Shadow Weaver was pretty hurt when she made it out of here. There's a chance, maybe, that if Catra's lucky for once in her miserable life that the old witch might drop dead before she even makes it back to the Fright Zone.

If not, she's slowed down, at least. Catra might be able to catch up to her once Adora is safe. Put her down before she gets picked up by a patrol. Return the tragic sole survivor of a deadly altercation with the Rebellion's most fearsome princess.

And if Catra can't pull _that_ off, she'll make up an excuse. Convince them that Adora is worth more to them alive than dead, that it was in Hordak's best interest that Catra foil Shadow Weaver's plans.

The power of She-Ra could never be theirs if she was dead.

There, that's pretty good. It almost sounds half believable in Catra's head.

She can try it.

She has to try.

She doesn't realize she's been crying, silent, pathetic, panicked tears until Adora's clumsily wiping them away with the flat of her hands.

In the distance, Catra finally hears it: the sound of engines, someone approaching. Not the whirr of a Horde skiff or the rumble of their tanks. It's got to be Rebellion.

She needs to go.

"Stay," Adora says, hand still clinging weakly to Catra's shirt. 

"I can't," Catra says, but her body just won't _move_.

Time is running out and she needs to be gone, she needs to catch up with Shadow Weaver.

_She needs to leave._

The engine noise gets closer and Adora won't let go.

Catra stays.


End file.
